Since You Went Away

(John Cromwell, US 1944, 172 min., 35mm)

United Artists Centennial. Producer David O. Selznick began his relationship with future wife Jennifer Jones on the set of this World War II homefront epic. Anne Hilton (Claudette Colbert), who has just seen her husband off to war, must deal with the war’s effects on her home, while raising her two daughters (Jones and Shirley Temple) and taking in a boarder to make ends meet. Predating the similarly themed The Human Comedy and The Best Years of Our Lives, this film is criminally under-seen, despite having been nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and three for acting.